Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
